The Investing Edgeof Enterprise IT

Last week, we announced that Baiyin Zhou joined Ascent Venture Partners as our newest senior associate. This is particularly exciting because adding to our team is the most important thing we do – and it’s not something we do often. Baiyin is our first new investment team member in 10 years. At Ascent, we treat hiring very seriously, and ourRead more…

Last week we announced our participation in a new round of funding for Boston-based Promoboxx. We found the team’s deep industry knowledge and focus, combined with the sizeable opportunity in front of them, to be very compelling. What further differentiates Promoboxx is its impressive success generated from only a modest seed round of capital and organic revenue growth. We areRead more…

For more than 30 years, we have been laser focused on investing in early stage business technology in the northeast U.S. because we believe an ideal combination of factors exist: B2B tech has the potential for capital efficient and rapid growth which fits the venture model well, the competition is lower than the west coast, and, perhaps most importantly, theRead more…

While most of us have spent the summer enjoying the beach and maybe a few too many meals al fresco, our VP of Finance, Tom Scanlon, has qualified to race at the IRONMAN World Championship in Kailua-Kona, HI this fall. Having completed four marathons, more than a dozen half-IRONMAN triathlons, and three IRONMANS, Tom finished the most recent in justRead more…

At Ascent, we have been investing in IT security for decades. As technology platforms shift, security solutions must both shift with them as well as rise to meet a more severe threat landscape posed by today’s sophisticated cyber criminals and nation-state sponsored hackers. As recent RSA conferences have shown, the challenge – and opportunity – posed by IT security hasRead more…

We’ve established that the synergy between Cloud and mobile is both powerful and undeniable (as outlined in Part 1). We are not alone in this assertion. Earlier this month at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, technology behemoths Samsung and Oracle announced a partnership to help companies make use of their existing systems in the cloud. The goal is to enableRead more…

Mention the words “cloud computing” to anyone outside the tech industry just five years ago and chances are you’d have been met with a blank stare. Today, everyone has some level of knowledge of the cloud, even if it’s just to understand that it’s where our smartphone stores our pictures. Cloud computing has come a LONG way since its birthRead more…

We’d like to recognize the many successes and accomplishments our portfolio companies achieved in 2015. From impressive rounds of funding to key acquisitions, these companies continue to be leaders in their sectors. While we won’t attempt to capture them all, below are some representative highlights: CloudLock, a leading cloud cybersecurity and CASB provider, had a rewarding year filled with impressiveRead more…

With all companies now targets of cyber-attacks, and the average cost of a successful attack rising to $4 million, the demand for security talent is at an all-time high. But while cyber security jobs are up 74 percent in the last five years, more than 209,000 cyber security jobs in the U.S. are unfilled. To add to the complexity, thisRead more…

The modern security landscape is becoming a competitive arms race between cyber-attackers and defenders. Threats have matured, risks are becoming increasingly sophisticated and vulnerabilities across the enterprise are commonplace – and evolving. While security spending has ballooned as a result – Gartner forecasted that $77 billion would be funneled globally toward IT security efforts in 2015 – it is notRead more…